Carrier route record
DLATL→ORF
Delta Air Lines · Atlanta to Norfolk
- Flights
- 2,701
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 93%
- Carriers
- 2
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Delta Air Lines.
Delta on ATL to ORF lands a B, 2 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 2,701 flights, with a median arrival 3 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Delta on ATL to ORF from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
79.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,654 completed flights
Avg delay
55 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.48%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
79.0%
Every carrier on ATL to ORF, 2,919 flights
These figures cover 2,701 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 3 minutes early, which is the part an average hides: most flights here are fine, and the on-time rate is decided by a tail of badly late ones. On-time means under 15 minutes late, the DOT's own threshold.
Carrier by carrier
Delta against every carrier on ATL to ORF
Delta flew 2,701 of the 2,919 flights on ATL to ORF, most of the route. Its 79.1% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 79.0%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from Delta at 79.1% to Frontier at 78.1%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
Only one carrier clears this site's 365-flight floor here, so there is no comparison to draw. The table below is the full picture.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines (this page) | 2,701 | 79.1% | 55 min | 1.48% | B |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 218 | 78.1% | 70 min | 1.38% | B |
Flight by flight
Delta flight numbers on ATL to ORF
Departure window
When Delta runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 20 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am221 flights91.5%
- 8am–11am376 flights87.6%
- 11am–2pm447 flights86.5%
- 2pm–5pm480 flights76.2%
- 5pm–8pm453 flights71.1%
- 8pm–5am724 flights73.3%
Scale runs 65% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 91.5% of the time, against 71.1% for the evening window. That is 20 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 724 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Delta on ATL to ORF through the year
July is the worst month at 63.9% on time, 25 points below April, the best at 89.0%. Summer afternoon convection and peak-season schedules land on the same weeks every year, so this is a pattern you can book around rather than a run of bad luck. July was the busiest month here, with 255 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 85.7% on time and Sunday the weakest at 72.7%. 13 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why Delta runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 49% of the 31,000 delay minutes carriers reported, and the remaining four split what is left. The split is by minutes rather than by flights, so a few very long delays count for as much as many short ones.
- 49%Carrier
- 26%Late-arriving aircraft
- 19%National Airspace System
- 5%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 49%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 15,000 of the 31,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 30,615 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 1.48% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.26%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
6.5% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 516 miles between these two airports put this in the middle of the US network, around two and a half to three hours of block time. That is enough cruise to absorb a ten-minute late pushback and not enough to absorb thirty. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 86.2% on time across 2,701 flights, 7 points above this direction. Departure banks, aircraft rotations and the congestion at each end all differ, so scoring the two directions together would average away a real 7 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 2,701 flights, enough that the headline rate is stable to within roughly a point. The hour-block and month splits divide that further, so read the thinner bars with more caution than the headline.
What to do with this
Booking Delta on ATL to ORF
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. April runs 89.0% on time and July 63.9%, a swing of 25 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 2,654 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- ATL to ORF, every carrier
- Delta on ORF to ATL, the return leg
- Frontier Airlines on ATL to ORF78.1%
- Delta Air Lines network-wide record
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) delay statistics
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.